Extracted Text

The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:

Texas Historical Association Quarterly.

ber as he shall consider necessary of the militia which the statehas in the departments wherein hostilities are committed, and forpaying or remunerating the militiamen, he may take of the vacantlands to the amount of four hundred sitios, distributing themagreeably to the rules and conditions he shall establish."Art. 3. For the present twenty thousand dollars are herebyappropriated, of the first receipts of the state treasury for sales oflands made by virtue of the law on the subject." Just a yearlater, April 14, 1835, another law declared that the executive couldnot dispose of the four hundred sitios of land mentioned in article2nd of this law, "except solely for the object which said law deter-mines"; but "agreeably to the aforementioned law the executivehas been, and is, authorized to contract the aforementioned lands,or to distribute them, as he shall think most proper, among themilitia men, who prosecute the war against the savages."2It was under this law of April 19, 1834, that S. M. Williams,Robert Peebles, and F. W. Johnson obtained their grant for fourhundred leagues, as will later appear. But Chambers declares thatMason also manipulated it to accomplish on a comparatively smallscale what Chambers had previously prevented his doing on a verylarge one. Chambers's statement, in brief, is, that the Indiansreally were troubling the frontiers and that the law was passed ingood faith to provide a means of suppressing them. It was theintention of the law that the land should be distributed to themilitia, and not sold, but by a trick in the enrolment of the bill itwas so changed as to authorize the governor to sell it to anybody,-1Decree No. 278, in Gammel, Laws of Texas, I 270-71. Articles 2 and 3are important, therefore it may be advisable to give the Spanish:"Art. 2. A este fin dispondrk en el nfimero que concid6re necesario dela milicia que el Estado tiene en los departamentos hostilizados, y parapagar 6 premiar & los milicianos podr hechar mano de las tierras valdfashasta en cuantidad de cuatrocientos sitios, repartiendolos bajo las reglasy condiciones que establesca."Art. 3. Por ahora se designan viente mil pesos de lo primero queingrese al tesoro del Estado, por las ventas de tierras que se hagan envirtud de la ley de la materia."-Laws of Coahuila and Texas.'Decree No. 299, in Gammel, Laws of Texas, I 397.'Pamphlet of ,Wm. N. Chambers, 37; Yoakum, History of Texas, I 321,note. Chamber's own explanation of the trick is as follows: "The articleof the decree relating to the subject . . . provided that the troopsshould be paid, or rewarded, with vacant lands, in the following terms:"Y para pagar 6 premiar d los milicianos podra hechar mano de lastierras valdias hasta in cantidad de cuatro cientos sitios, repartendoselosbajo las reglas y condiciones que establesca." These were the terms: